Unreleased Essential Phone dock goes on sale on eBay

With the company shut down, it looks like someone from the Essential team or at least someone associated with the former smartphone maker tried to sell off some hardware, including an unreleased product. But the product has since been pulled. The offer included an Essential Phone in Ocean Depths colour, the clip-on 360-degree camera, a case for the camera, headphone adapter, earbuds, and the unreleased dock. The auction was up to US$535 (around CA$709) with 39 bids before it was pulled.

Source: Android Police

Essential will be closing its doors this year

Essential, the company founded by Android co-founder Andy Rubin, will be shutting its doors just under three years since it started. The company launched the Essential Phone back in May 2017 to mixed reviews. It's helped pioneer the front-facing camera notch that we've seen in a lot of modern smartphones. But after a New York Times report released in October of 2018 reported about Andy Rubin being removed from Google following a $90 million payout over sexual misconduct allegations, the company was pushed into obscurity because Rubin's reputation was tied heavily with the company's.

Essential tried to tease a new kind of phone called Project Gem after that. But it seems it wasn't enough to help revive the company. Essential says they're shutting down because they can't find a way to deliver Gem to consumers. As for existing Essential Phone owners, the February security update will be the last update the phone will get. And those using their email client Newton mail will have access to it until April 30, 2020.

Source: Essential

Essential now directly sells products in Canada

Essential is taking its products and accessories beyond US soil and is expanding to five other countries, including Canada, France, Germany, Japan, and the UK. If you’re interested in buying the Essential Phone or the 360 Camera, you can order directly from Essential.com. As expected there are special terms and conditions, which you can read at the company’s Terms of Sale page. Standard prices seem to apply, so you get the equivalent prices to how the products are priced in the US. Shipping charges will be calculated during checkout and the product is expected to arrive in around five business days. Essential wants to remind its international customers that any taxes, fees, and duties incurred will not be shouldered by the company. They are also not responsible for “risk of loss or failure to delivery due to customs or related issues.” But if you’ve been wanting to get your hands on Essential products, it has gotten much easier to do so now.

Source: Android Police

Essential wants you to embrace the notch (or not) with new update

No matter what your opinion is of the notch, it seems to be here to stay. Essential was one of the first to implement this and they’re giving their users options now on how to deal with this cut-out. When the device first launched, it was designed to fade into the background as much as possible. The phone would “crop” content like games and videos to make sure these don’t flow into where the cut-out was. But now, the latest update gives users three options on how to deal with the notch.

The first one is “Essential Recommended,” which is based on how the company thinks the notch should be made visible or not. It’s a setting that changes on an app-by-app basis. The second option completely hides the feature in landscape mode, which is for those who really don’t want to have to think about the cut-out being there. The last option lets you use the entire screen real estate, meaning you’ll include the areas around the notch.

Source: 9to5Google